These are some concepts from a creature design class I also took last winter, this one with the amazingly talented Jerad Marantz (here is his ArtStation and please go check it out if you aren’t familiar – he’s crazy prolific and works on the coolest projects).

Anywho, for the latter half of our 10-week class, Jerad had us concentrate on creating SCARY characters for a dark planet, which for me and a few others was pretty new. I loved drawing animals as a kid, but I never, ever tried drawings something creepy.  As you may have noticed (unless you’re blind), my schtick generally is pretty girls.  So, the reference gathering began. Naked mole rats, bugs, gross things that live underwater…yum, yum.

Jerad is a really solid critic, so I was really happy with my results following his workflow.  I just want you to know you can start out with some really crappy sketches. Like, I think I used this paper to check if that blue pen is still working…BUT you can see the formation of a couple of my designs right here, in all their crappy glory.

Not that I showed those in class.  Here’s the first set of ideation:

Getting more finalized….the idea is that two are herbivores, two are carnivores and two are humanoid, so only moving forward with one of each.

Some last adjustments happened on the line work and then added value. I turned the “herbivore’s” head (because does anyone NOT eat meat on this planet?!) for a little more variation in the poses, otherwise, they’d all have posed, turned heads. It’s noteworthy to mention that things look good in threes….yes, I’m talking about the boobs.The rest is all color, shadows and an indication of environment. Thanks for taking a look!